Former child protection manager says there are up to 20 prominent public
figures in alleged paedophile ring covering Parliament and judiciary

Judges, peers and MPs are among 20 prominent public figures who abused children for decades, a former child protection manager has said.

Peter McKelvie, who worked on the conviction of paedophile Peter Righton, said there was a “powerful elite” of paedophiles who carried out “the worst form” of abuse.

There is evidence linking the former politicians to an alleged paedophile network, he said.

Lord Warner, the former health minister, said the allegations were credible.

Mr McKelvie triggered a police investigation in 2012 when he revealed there were seven boxes of potential evidence of a powerful paedophile network, including letters between Righton and other paedophiles, being stored by West Mercia Police.

The former child protection manager in Hereford and Worcestershire said: “I believe there is a lot of strong evidence, and information that can be converted into evidence if it is investigated properly, that there has been an extremely powerful elite, amongst the highest levels of the political classes, for as long as I have been alive.

“There has been sufficient reason to investigate it over and over again certainly for the past thirty years, and there has always been a block, and the cover-up and collusion, to prevent that happening.”

“We are looking at the Lords, the Commons, the judiciary – all institutions where there will be a small percentage of paedophiles, and a slightly larger percentage of people who have known about it but have felt in terms of their own self-interest and self-preservation and for political party reasons it has been safer cover it up rather than deal with it,” he told the BBC.

“I would say we are looking at upwards of 20 [people] and a much larger number of people who have known about it and done nothing about it, who were in a position to do something about it,” he said.

The alleged abuse involved rape, beatings and being moved between paedophiles “like a lump of meat”.

Lord Warner, the former Labour health minister, said the claims were “possibly true”.

Children’s homes provided “supply lines” for child abuse and were targeted by “people in power” during the 1980s, he said.

“Sexual abuse of children is a power drive, that's what a lot of it is about.

“What I am suggesting is that it's possible that people who were authoritative, powerful, in particular communities did sometimes have access to children's homes.

"I had to fire two managers of children's homes... for abusing children in their care.”

Today Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary of the Home Office, will be questioned by MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee.

He oversaw last year’s review of how the department handled allegations from MP Geoffery Dickens, in the form of a dossier handed to Home Secretary Leon Brittan, about an establishment paedophile ring.

The review found the allegations were handled properly but the questioning is likely to focus on the 114 “potentially relevant files” that the review found had been lost or destroyed.

Yesterday Theresa May, the Home Secretary, announced two new inquiries. Political parties and MI5 will have their files examined in a probe into allegations of child sex abuse by politicians, while the BBC and religious organisations would fall under the remit of a major new inquiry into whether those in power turned a blind eye to abuse claims.

Lord Warner said the Home Secretary must “clean the Augean stables” in order to maintain public trust in the establishment.